Woke up this morning and rallied my mom to head north a bit towards Granogue. (GRA-NO with a frenchy accent, please.) Things did not go well between us today, she is my mom, she drives me nuts. And, today was NOT the day to drive me nuts. We stayed up late watching that Adam Sandler football movie. The Final yard or something. Ugh. You ever think about those guys making that movie, did they ever stop during filming and just think how f'ing ridiculous it was that they were making it? Or were they all too busy dude-ing out to let thier guard down and think about anything? I think the latter...

Well, I was busy dude-ing out today. Like I said, the Granogue course was very hilly and super off camber, with a couple runup sections and slippery, slippery mud throughout. You would climb to the top of this witch's tower and ride around the back side of it and then drop down the front of it, sliding kinda out of control the whole time.

I got shafted on the start per usual, starting far behind the callup. The course started on this road section and I drilled it to the top of the road, throwing elbows and shoulders the whole way up. Pissed a couple of people off "Hey!" "We are gonna take you out! @#*%!!" I kinda thought, hey, we are racing, I'm agressive, you are losing. I got spooked for a second and wondered if someone was going to throw a punch, it was really dicey with all the slick mud.

Well, my race went ok, I hooked up with a group racing for 14th place and got spit off the back of it in the last lap. I was cooked. Ended up 17th and $47 richer. Got passed by Adam hodges Myerson with a few laps to go and he was riding FAR better lines than I was. So I copied his lines and watched him ride away. I think he got 11th. I rode better after that. I did not crash and did not make any major mistakes, I think I even pressured a couple people into making errors and crashing out when they were chasing me which, is totally fair. It is all a game of tactics. I don't really like people on my wheels resting in my draft so I would take super hard lines or change my line at the last possible second to throw them off.

I have a ways to go. My technique is average, my fitness is average.

Well, I miss Portland. It is crazy depressing here. Delaware is pretty, in a New Englandy kinda way. But it is so, so bad here. I spent 2 hours looking for anything healthy to eat tonight, walking up and down Main st. (settling on a crappy salad and hummus) in the heart of the University of Delaware. UofD sucks. It is a frat-party college. Did I mentioned I went to high school here? Those were hands down the worst years of my life. I feel like the people and culture here is crazy. That is what I get living in this little socially conscious bubble on the west coast. I spend so much time taking care of my body and trying to keep healthy that is freaks me out that people don't even know what Vegan is. I even asked where any veg friendly food was at the hopelessly small Co-op here and they sent me down to: "Spanky's. Its new". "Spankys?" I asked. "Yeah, they have a raw-bar." A raw bar? I got my hopes up thinking hmmm, ok maybe there is some progressive thinking in town. Nope, raw sushi bar (not that sushi is ever cooked). Y'know, raw fish is vegetarian. Well, I guess to some people it is.

Sorry, I'm pissed! It is kinda ridiculous. It makes me sad. Anything besides almond-pumpkin-lattes, new cars and consumerism is beyond most people here.

Sean Woosley hooked me up with some vegan cookies after the race. Thanks dawg. woof! He drove up from his new home in DC.

I'm feeling the Vanilla love too. More than anyother bike I noticed, people would stop and stare at my bikes. When I rode past the Richard Sachs and IF team cars they stopped talking and stared at my bikes. I'm not full of myself really! Just passing along the facts and I am damn proud of Sacha. His work is beautiful. He called me after the race too to ask how it went. That was sweet, I had a whirlwind few days before I took off and did not get a chance to say good-bye to a few people.

No Shannon today, no Tonkin or Mazza either. Just Barry, Ryan, Sean Woosley and I representing for the hometeam. Ryan won. I was nowhere near getting lapped. That feels nice.

Ok, my head is spinning, I found free WIFI inside a 24hour Dunkin Donuts. Watching the college kids pound pastries and coffee working on thier schoolwork. No really, my head is spinning, I think I have vertigo or something.

I hope I get a reputation as the rider that elbows everybody. heh-heh.

In Delaware right now drinking a poorly made Americano in the college town I went to high school.

Ran into Mark Vettori, Barry Wicks and race promoter Tom McDaniels at the Granogue venue this morning when I got a few valuable pre-ride laps in. Mark V and I used to skateborad together when I lived in Delaware 10 years ago. The Granogue course is going to be hard. It is really hilly, lots of off camber and some kinda technical sections. Not a whole lot of recovery time between sketchy sections. My mom is pretty pumped to come out and see me race. It is going to be kinda crazy, like "yeah, this is what I do with my time."

New York, New York:

Ugh. My flight Wednesday night was bad, I could NOT get myself to sleep. I drifted in and out of tiredness and watched MTV, did you know that is actually Jaime Fox singing with Kanye on "Golddigger"? Wow. He is putting those singing lessons from the movie "Ray" to damn good use... I usually like redeye flights. Then I got to NYC, spent 2+ hours on the subway due to slightly off directions to my friend Sarah's house. Keep in mind I had my newly glued race wheels and a HUGE kit bag with me. Walking 2 blocks was a chore. I finally made it to Sarah and Thomas' house and we walked Thomas to work and I got a NY bagel with tofu cream cheese. Mmmm.

And EVERYTHING is expensive. It was $8 to get from the airport to Sarah's. Then I dropped $50 on a car service out to the rental car I had to pick up in New Jersey. There was NO way I could manage lugging my wheels and bags over to NJ on public transportation. Apparently Budget rental does NOT accpet debit cards inside the NY metro area. I don't own a credit card. I stood there gawking at the rental guy. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." Then I just pulled out my Albina Credit Union debit card and handed it to him, bluffing "try this one." There is no way it should have worked but, it did. Somehow it worked out, I sped to Newark, Delaware from NYC in 2 hours, stopping to take a nap north of Philly before I just fell asleep at the wheel. Damn, I am tired. Yeah, if you are ever driving up and down the East coast, bring lots of cash. Seemed like I was paying a toll every few miles.

I made it to the Wooden Wheels shop right after they closed and flagged down an employee to let me sneak in and get my bikes. The front wheel on the A bike got knocked out of whack in shipping and I had to run back to the shop and have them true it up for me. It felt so wrong walking up to the counter of another shop "hey, do you think you can do this for me in an hour?" Also, the fork had a pinched dropout. I had to gently pry it apart to let the front wheel fit back in. Can't tell if the alignment is off or not.

Now my mom and I are hanging out at a coffee shop. I'm going to swing her by the Hallmark store and, after she glanced over my shoulder to see what I am typing, we are going to rent "Ray".

Christina/Crank Bros sent Veloshop some fancy new "short" TI spindles for the race bikes. They will be there when I get back. I hope Keely is doing ok by herself. If you stop by the Veloshop, be really nice to her. Buy her lunch, I'll pay you back.


I wonder what Gully's doing...

No I don't. I know Wells is out golfing somewhere and the Kona boys are holed up in Tom McD's fancy house taking long hot baths, Tonkin is probably working on bikes as we speak, and Brian is at home watching the 2nd season of Arrested Development.

Wow, per usual I have been crazy busy. Got up at 5am on Sunday, shaved my legs and headed out with Issac and Brian to PIR to setup the course and get ready. Doug Moak (the River City Bicycles pit master) met us there and really did MORE than his fair share of labor helping me setup the course and design the little hill section. A lovely, lovely man.

A handfull of superstars made public appearences: Jonathan Maus, Chris Distefano, Jacquline Phelan.

Bike Portland already has a good race report up!

The Veloshop team is freaking amazing. I finished up my race and spun around a little and before I could start bossing people around to clean up the course, it was done! No joke, this sprawling cross course was spotless and the OBRA van packed and ready to go not 30 minutes after I crossed the line.

Everyone did such a commendable job. Brian and Jackson sacrificed thier races to run the show. Brooke Hoyer showed up and got straight to business lap counting. All the Veloshop ladies rocked the race, Bridgette winning the Elite race, and Erin Playman getting 5th in the B race on a singlespeed.

Brilliant. It was just such a blur and if PIR does not jack us on groundskeeping fees we will have a nice little race fund started. There is serious talk of a Veloshop series next cross season and also talk of promoting cross events well into January and February.



Que mas? I'm late for work again. It's ok, not like I will get much work done anyways. All I seem to do anymore is glue tubulars and repair cross bikes f'ed up over the weekend.


OH! Here is a horrible story about spending the night prepping my bikes to get shipped out to the east coast. Spending all day packing them Monday only to miss the Fedex deadline to get them there on Friday and then having to drop $400 on both bikes and a wheelset to get them there in time to race on Saturday. I drove my van around during rush hour traffic last night going from Fedex office to UPS to the Post Office and back to FedEx and then FINALLY to the Kinko's down the street from my shop.

Long story short. The wonderful gentleman at Kinkos recognized me from my MLK blvd. days where I had fixed his brakes once. With a smirk he quietly told me I had become a Fedex employee and both bikes would be $80. AND they would be there a day EARLY!

No shit! Right when I was about to give up and drop the cash. I mean I had my Visa in hand and was letting him swipe it ($400!!) when he recognized my name...


Wow.


Wow.


(thanks Andrew Arnsberg for the photos!)